Trouble getting iTunes to sync with music on my external hard drive
PLEASE HELP ME! I recently moved all of my music to my external hard drive to free up space on my computer. I have all the original files on my hard drive now, but (perhaps stupidly) deleted all the files from my actual computer. Now, I'm afraid I can't get all my ratings, last time played, number of plays, playlists, etc. back.
This is basically what I did:
1. Moved music from computer to External
2. In my iTunes preferences menu, I changed my "iTunes Music Folder Location" to the same original folder on my external hard drive.
My problem is that after I did that, iTunes didn't automatically add all my files back into the program. Now, it seems like I've got to add everything back one by one and everything without my customized info (#plays, recently played/added, rating, playlists, etc).
Will someone please just talk to me about this since AppleCare represetatives refuse to deal with problems that have absolutely anything to do with products that aren't made by them....even though I bought the thing at an Apple Store. I'm not sure if I'm giving the right info...I just need someone to ask me the right questions! PLEASE!
Here's Apple's method of moving your Music Folder:
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
It refers to iTunes 4 but works for iTunes 6. Notice step 14. Leave the iTunes Library & iTunes Music Library files in the ~/Music/iTunes folder on your internal HD. This is where iTunes, also other iLife apps, expect to find them.
What are the iTunes library files?
Similar Messages
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How can i get Itunes to route my music to an external hard drive once my Internal drive is full?
My Internal hard drive is getting full and im starting to worry about how i will store tracks in the future. I have my itunes set to auto organize the files into the Music folder when dragged into Itunes. I am a DJ, so i do get music quiet frequently that i need to add to Itunes for My DJ Software, Serato, To read. Is there anyway i can have Itunes begin rerouting the new songs onto an external HD? and can i play songs from two different hard drives with itunes open? Example, Song A is on internal.. once i finish listening to it or having serato acess it, If i then want to play Song B, which is on an external HD, will Itunes need to "Relocate the file" or will it remember its stored on the connected External HD?
Thank youIf that doesn't work for you then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes .
tt2 -
Before I got my new computer (which was operating on Windows XP), I successfully moved my itunes library to my external hard drive and ran it off that so as not to take up space on my laptop. I now have a new computer which runs off of Windows 7. I've tried going to iTunes-->preferences-->advanced-->"itunes media folder location" and pointing it to my external hard drive but it still doesn't show my library. What do I need to do to make my iTunes library on my new computer read my iTunes library off of my external hard drive?
As Chris says... but if the media is on an external drive as above then you also need to make sure the external drive has the same drive letter on the system you are moving to or iTunes won't be able to find the files.
You might also find this topic useful: Make a split library portable.
tt2 -
How do I get iTunes to recognise media on a new external hard drive?
I had moved my entire iTunes library to an external HDD after running out of space on my 2007 Macbook. Unfortunately my HDD then broke so I sent it for data recovery. Now I've got it back I can't seem to be able to get iTunes to automatically recognise my new HDD, and iTunes seems to have changed the location where it's searching for the music back to the default one.
If memory serves me correctly I did this on an older version of iTunes but am now running the latest one. Dunno whether that makes any difference or not but I just want to be able to access the music which the data recovery company salvaged (tens of GBs' worth) so I can update my iPod and hear my tunes!Hi aghill77,
Sorry to hear of your troubles. If you click on a song and it will not play, you can delete it. Then you can redownload it from the iTunes Store or re-import it from a CD or file as described above. The links below will show you how to delete purchased content and redownload it from the iTunes Store. There also a link to review your entire purchase history and get help from the iTune Store Support team if you need it.
iTunes Store & Mac App Store: Seeing your purchase history and order numbers
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2727
How to delete content you've downloaded from the iTunes Store, App Store, iBooks Store, or Mac App Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5772
Downloading past purchases from the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
Good luck!
- Judy -
ITunes cannot locate my music from my external hard drive
I am using the most uptodate software for mac book and itunes. Having followed all other discussions and located the media folder using preferences itunes still cannot locate my music, this is really frustating! All of my music is the the itunes media folder within the itunes folder on my external harddrive and it still wont find the music. Futher to this my library should have about 50,000 songs in it but itunes library is only showing 354 songs that all have the ! sign beside them.
Please can someone help me as this is annoying!
PS. this method worked fine on my windows until itunes had updated, since the recent update and my move to macbook pro my media cannot be foundOops, excuse me I think I misread the initial problem.
This solution might be more on track, though I don't understand why the 354 songs your library does list are broken...
Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
See MusicFolder Files Not Added and Super Remove Dead Tracks for tools to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
tt2 -
New hard drive on laptop, itunes music stored on external hard drive...
my hard drive on my laptop crashed and I got a new one installed...I kept all my itunes music on an external hard drive, and that is ok. I have reinstalled itunes on my laptop, but how do I get itunes to read the music from my external hard drive??
When you say "when i double click on my itunes files it just opens up this list of music." it doesn't mean anything to me. You need to explain clearly, remember I only know what you tell me.
I need to understand how you have things set up and if you had you iTunes library database on the external drive or the c: drive. That is the iTunes folder containing iTunes library.itl.
What do you see when you open iTunes on the new PC, are your music files there. If not, every time you play a track it gets added to itUnes so you should at least have some files in your library.
What problem are you trying to solve? Is just getting the tracks into your iTunes library, or are you also concerned about ratings, count and playlists from the old PC. If so do you still have access to the old PC? -
How do i get itunes 11 to stop adding music played from external hard drive to itunes library
I use itunes 11 to play music from my external hard drive and when i am finished using the hard drive and disconnect it the artist and songs appear in the itunes libary and when i click on it to play them it cannot locate the file and i assume this is becuse under the advanced prefrences tab i unchecked the auomaticly add played music to itunes library. I do not want my external hard drive music to be added to itunes library which at this point it does not but it is still showing the music in the library even though it cannot be played this is very fustrating please help. how do i get the artist and songs played from the external hardrive from appering in the itunes library.
Do you have a working copy of the library anywhere? The key file is called iTunes Library.itl and normally exists inside <User's Music>\iTunes. This is the file that knows what is in your library and each of the playlists, and holds ratings, play counts etc. Changing the media folder path in preferences tells iTunes where you'd like it to store media in future. It doesn't magically connect iTunes to any media that might already be there, or fix links to media that has been moved, or make it pick up a non-existent library file. If the worst comes to it you will need to import the media into the new empty library.
See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device if you have any of these to recover ratings, play stats and playlists, and to associate your device with the new library.
tt2 -
Importing music FROM an external hard drive
My dance studio has an external hard drive with over 15,000 songs in MP3 format, and I would like to be able to put some of those songs on an iPod. My problem: I do not want double copies of my 15,000 songs (one copy in the external hard drive and one copy in iTunes) as that would take up A LOT of computer space. Space I don't have. I have recently installed iTunes on the studio computer (preferring the program for my personal music), is there a way to import the songs from my external hard drive into my iTunes library with out making two copies of each song (in different formats as explained earlier)? Can you "tell" iTunes to find its music in an external hard drive?
Check your iTunes Preferences. Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced and see if you have "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checked. If you haven't then all you did was add a reference to the original location (the external drive) to iTunes without copying the song files them selves. With the external drive disconnected iTunes can no longer locate the file to play from. If that's the case you'd need to delete the songs from iTunes, change preference and add the songs over again.
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I have all my music on an external hard drive. I just transferred all my files to a new hard drive . How do I sync all my files with my itunes library without losing all my playlists etc and keep everything intact?
Launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and specify it. If the external drive doesn't contain the iTunes database files, create a new library there and import that music.
If the library contains any rented movies, they won't play on a different computer.
(109334) -
I had all of my music on an external hard drive that crashed. I have iTunes Match so all of my music was synced in the cloud. How do I now re-load my music back down onto a new external hard drive?
Hey Rbe58!
I believe this question can be answered by the information in the following article:
iTunes 11 for Windows: Access all your music anytime, anywhere with iTunes Match
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph12492
Play or download songs from iCloud
You can play songs directly from iCloud, or you can download songs so you can play them when you’re not connected to the Internet.
If a song is available in iCloud, it has a Download button next to it.
To play the song, double-click it.
To download the song, click the Download button.
After you download a song to a computer, it remains in the computer’s iTunes library, even if you turn off iTunes Match.
To only display downloaded songs in your iTunes library, choose View > Hide Music in the Cloud. This also hides any previous iTunes Store purchases you haven’t downloaded.
For information about downloading and playing songs on an iOS device, see the documentation for the device.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!
Cheers,
Braden -
I want to put all my music onto an external hard drive. But I can't get it to put music on my itunes. The music list is completely empty and so is my IPOD. How do I do this? I have a PC with Windows.
You say the music is not on the external HD, the music list (iTunes?) is empty, and it is not on the iPOd. Then where is the music you want to move to the external HD?
You can redownlaod iTunes purchases by:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store -
I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library. When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". But when I have my external hard drive plug in the song will play with no problem. What do I need to do to play my music without having the external harddrive plug in ???????? Please help
Because the location for each song in your library is on your hard drive. If the hard drive isn't there, how can iTunes play it?
You'll have to move/copy the music from your hard drive to your computer's hard drive.
Basically, EASIEST way to do all this, if you don't care about your play counts, etc...
-Delete EVERYTHING from iTunes, so that your library is now empty.
-Go to "Advanced" inside of the "Preferences" window, found in the "Edit" drop-down. You can also access Preferences by pressing Ctrl+, (Press Ctrl and the comma key)
-Change your iTunes Media Folder Location to something simple, but on your computer. I use C:/iTunes. Make sure "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" and "Copy files to...." are both checked. You can close Preferences now.
-Now, drag and drop your music from your hard drive into your iTunes library. iTunes will automatically add the music to your library, as you would expect, and also creates a copy of each file to place into that iTunes Media Folder you just created.
Shouldn't have any more problems... -
My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music on my ipod to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?
New itunes is trying to wipe the ipod. But have many many playlists (many hours making) which I want to save. Any help would be appreciated.If you want to just extract the playlists from your iPod, plug it in iTunes. When it appears under devices, right->click on it and choose Export Playlists. Save them to a location such as your desktop and them import them into your library once you have copied and imported all of your music back into it.
See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock -
How do I get iTunes to access music files on external hard drive?
We moved all of our music to an external hard drive. The hd is always on and I connect to it wirelessly. I don't know how to get iTunes to use the library that is on the hard drive, can anyone help me please.
iTunes expects to find its library in the ./Music/iTunes folder. To get iTunes to see music on another drive, you first have to create the library on your internal drive. Once you've done that, you copy the iTunes folder over to your external drive, and redirect iTunes to that drive, using an alias. (I originally did this in Tiger and it continues to work fine in Leopard. I don't know if doing it originally in Leopard would make any difference.)
Note: If your external drive library is already too large for your internal drive, simply use as much of it as you can to create the original library on your internal drive. You can add the rest of it once you've got iTunes looking at the external drive. In this case, remember to name any "iTunes" folder on the external drive to something else, so you don't erase everything in the following procedure.
Load up as much music as you can on your internal drive, making sure it appears in iTunes.
Quit iTunes and copy the iTunes folder from your internal drive to your external drive (be sure you don't erase whatever's already on the external drive). Copying that folder to the root of the external drive is OK.
On your internal drive, rename the 'iTunes" folder to something else (like orig_iTunes) -- or move it out of the Music folder.
Open your external hard drive to the directory containing your iTunes folder.
Cmd-Option drag the iTunes folder from the external hard drive to the internal hard drive Music folder, creating an alias in the internal drive's Music folder.
Launch iTunes. You should now see the music from the external hard drive. If necessary, you can now add back any missing music, and it will automatically create the necessary music and library files inside your iTunes folder on the external drive. Once you've got them all added, you can delete both the orig_iTunes folder, and the folder on your external drive that served as the source for adding your library back in. -
I would like to keep all my music on my external hard drive but I can't seem to get itunes to recognise my hard drive. How do I get itunes to recognise my hard drive so I can play the music off there rather than copying the files over each time?
Click the icon to launch iTunes
Immediately press and hold down the shift key
Keep holding shift until asked to create or choose a library
If iTunes opens normally close and go back to step 1.
Browse to the iTunes Library.itl file you want to open.
See also: HT1589: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
If you had copied across as directed there would be no need to move anything back...
tt2
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